


sunsets

by remi_wolf



Series: The Life and Times of Teddy Blaseball [8]
Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort, Found Family, Gen, Hair Washing, Inspired by Music, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), Self-Worth Issues, Service as a Love Language, a little bit, just a little bit, look it includes every single garage so it's tagged with them as an ensemble, teddy can have a little bit of a breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28779867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remi_wolf/pseuds/remi_wolf
Summary: It was only supposed to be a song. It was a song, and nothing more than that. Yes, it was deeply personal, andyesTeddy hadn't intended for anyone to hear it, but now they had, and now everyone was staring at him like he announced that he was dying or something. And yes, he might have called himself their enemy, rather than the gods, but that wasn't anything other than the truth. Why were they so upset with him?Deeply inspired by the recent garages song, "at the end of the day," from the album, "ROSTER."
Relationships: Theodore Duende & Jaylen Hotdogfingers
Series: The Life and Times of Teddy Blaseball [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918738
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [at the end of the day](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/743505) by dallin grimm. 



> So..................have fun! Lots of Teddy being vaguely awful to himself and not accepting that he could be deserving of affection and reassurances and that he's not as bad as he thinks he is, fyi. Honestly, I'm still not entirely sure about this fic, but I leave it up to you, my lovely readers. I hope you all enjoy it. Proper author's note will be at the end of the fic, so just...talk at you later!

_“So I guess I’ll go_

_And close the book on Theo..."_

Teddy didn’t look up from his mallets, the soft heads striking the wood of the marimba, trying to ignore the shaking way he couldn’t manage a proper breath. He didn’t know why he was doing this, but OLL-E had pulled him out of the practice room to show his song to the others. It wasn’t exactly a song that he had _intended_ for the others, but here he was, and he finally stopped with the end of what he had written so far, tense and hurting and gnawing on the inside of his cheek to try and get himself to not worry too much about the inevitable reaction from the rest of the team.

Silence stretched out, without even the sound of someone reaching to grab their own instrument to riff off the idea and make it better. No riffing, no clapping, nothing at all. Anything would have been better than the silence that was greeting him in return to this. He finally looked up after a moment, dropping the mallets into the cup he had drilled into the side of the instrument ages ago. Maybe their expressions would be better and not seem quite so much like absolute 

“What the _fuck_ , Teddy!”

Teddy winced, glad he had dropped the mallets before he snapped them in his hands with the sudden tension in his body. Ollie’s words were sharp and sudden, and he shook his head quickly as he took a few steps back. He was being ridiculous, and he never should have written the song, or let OLL-E hear him playing it, even if Notarobot heard only by virtue of the fact that he was plugged into the recording equipment half the time. Rude, but he wasn’t about to tell him what he could and couldn’t do with technology.

“Have you talked to anyone about this?” This time it was Arty who spoke up, voice quiet and certainly sounding concerned about all of it.

“I’m sorry!” Teddy took a deep breath as he stepped on the lock of the marimba, already looking over his shoulder for the shortest path to his safe, soundproof practice room. “Notarobot asked, so I just...and I know I’ve not been around as much with the Siesta and everything—”

“No, idiot.” Ollie sighed, rolling his eyes before running up to catch the marimba, holding it firm so that Teddy couldn’t disappear. “Have you talked to Allison about this shit?”

Teddy stopped, looking up at Ollie, and then at the others arranged around the garage, trying not to look at their faces. The ones that were easy to read had similar expressions of concern and he couldn’t tell what else, but even Quack and Summers and the Pitching Machine seemed to look just as devastated or something with the stupid song he wrote. He wasn’t sure what was worse, seeing the humans that looked like he spat in their coffee, or the fact that he could even read the expression of a literal horse and duck. 

“Look. I...I’m fine, alright? Just playing with some stuff, so it’s fine. There’s nothing to talk about with Allison. I’m fine.” Teddy shrugged, glancing away to start pulling his marimba back with him. He took a few steps back, only to feel something press against him and force him to stop, though he couldn’t see anything as he glanced back over his shoulder. Just the oddly shadowed garage door he was trying to walk through. 

Tot sighed, pinching the bridge of their nose through the bandages. “So you’ve not talked to Allison, and you’ve probably not talked to Randy, and gods know you haven’t talked to me. Malik, has he talked to you about this?”

Malik frowned, and didn’t that just make Teddy feel like shit? He couldn’t remember ever seeing the catboy looking so concerned, ears flat against his head and tail puffed. “No. Teddy’s not talked to me about this.” Malik frowned, arms crossed as he leaned back in his chair. “So Teddy’s not talked to any of the originals, even if I’m an alternate. Lenny?”

“Not me.” Lenny sighed, running a hand through his hair before he looked past Teddy to the darkened corner before sighing. “And not Mike either.”

“Mike’s not here!” Teddy couldn’t help but shout, snapping at them for talking like he wasn’t there, and then mentioning Mike, and he closed his eyes tight as he pulled his glasses off, pressing the heel of his hand to his eyes. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I...I shouldn’t snap, a captain shouldn’t snap at his team, what the fuck am I doing?”

“Theo—”

“Allison calls me that. Don’t...don’t call me that.” Teddy took a shaking breath before finally walking around the marimba and he pushed it out of the room, disappearing into his carefully-labeled and entirely soundproofed studio, and he unplugged every possible microphone so that he could properly be alone. OLL-E couldn't listen in, no one else could tap in, it would be him, his thoughts, and no one else, so he could be safe.

Alone was safe, at least for now, and he could scream at the world, and not worry at all about whether he was just hurting the others when he couldn’t manage being perfect. It was just so much, and he knew that he was falling apart, but he didn’t know what to do. Everyone expected so much, so disappearing to a practice room forever, just him and his emotions, would be far better than anything else. 


	2. Chapter 2

“So...he’s not alright. We’re all aware of that, right? Teddy’s not doing good at all.” Ollie glanced back at the others before sitting back down on his skateboard, glancing across the faces.

“MISSION CONTROL TO OLIVER, TEAM CAPTAIN SEEMS TO BE LESS THAN OPTIMAL, OVER,” “As I see it, yes,” and then a flurry of signs from Durham, and Ollie couldn’t quite parse all of them at the same time, even despite being the greatest blaseball player ever. Still, he thought he got the gist of it. Something about seeing it before at the edge of the universe or something. Really, nothing that ground-breaking. 

“So, we’re in agreement. Teddy’s doing awful, he’s been hiding it for ages, and he’s never bothered to tell any of us any of this, like some sort of self-sacrificing idio—”

“We are the ones that made him team captain after he managed a good play. That..." Tot sighed softly, glancing at some of the others, and particularly the players that had been part of the team longer. “That puts a precedent on his shoulders, especially considering we had all promised not to have a captain back before the start of the first season.”

“If he had a good play, then he deserves it! Why does that promise matter?” Goodwin frowned, arms and shadowed arms crossed as she looked concerned and confused as she glanced between the players. “He should realize that it’s an honor to be our captain!”

Arturo shifted, standing and stretching before glancing back towards where Teddy had disappeared off to. “There is no second chair. But...if Teddy’s captain, then he probably thinks that means he’s been put in first chair, and now he’s got to make it worth it, so that we don’t regret it and hate him for being first chair. ”

“So...he’s worried we’ll hate him if he’s not perfect.”

Ollie glanced over at Paula, shrugging. “Clearly. He’s always been ridiculous like that. Him and Allison always refused to talk, even when I tried to drag them to therapy sessions in the skate park.” He sighed, tapping the skateboard before pointing towards Notarobot. “You have a recording of that song, right?”

“I...remember it, yes. I have it recorded in my memory banks.” Notarobot tilted his head as he thought about it before nodding. “I could definitely share it if someone plugged me into an amplifier.”

“Excellent!” Ollie grinned, standing up and pointing at Lenny. “You, get Mike here and get Goodwin to help you get him solid.” He pointed towards Arturo, only to shift where he was pointing to the right six feet when they cleared their throat. “You call up Allison, get her to come here as quickly as you can.” He frowned, glancing around the others before pointing at Tot. “And you get Jaylen here.”

“Teddy hates Jaylen.” 

Ollie sighed, rolling his eyes before frowning. “Well, Jaylen was the closest thing we had to a captain at the start, and she’s one of the originals, and I  _ thought _ they had started to reconcile after the Hall and everything.”

Tot’s one revealed eye narrowed slightly at the thought, before they finally nodded, standing up. “Alright. I’ll get Jaylen here. Not sure how, but I’ll take care of it.” Tot disappeared, already tapping away at his phone.

“Excellent, excellent. Everyone, get Toast to get us some coffee, and we’ve got our work cut out for us.” Ollie grinned, glancing around at everyone. Right. This was going to work. It would be excellent, and the best way to show Teddy that he wasn’t the reason they were awful.

“Wait. Ollie, the  _ fuck _ are you planning?” Betsy shifted, pulling her jacket tighter around her shoulders.

Ollie laughed, shrugging. “We’re going to finish his song! Obviously!”

Betsy didn’t look too impressed, eyes narrowing. “And what about that song makes you think that Teddy would want you to finish it?”

“I...it’s not finished, though? So, obviously, we should finish it for him. Take over and finish it for him!”

“You really think he’d want us to finish that for him?” Greer shifted, glancing at Lenny before looking back at Ollie. “I think this was...I don’t know, one of those therapy exercises? To get emotions out there. Maybe a bit of self care or something. I don’t know if he’d want us to finish it.”

“And I know that I’m a bit more new, and I don’t really get the whole idea of a first or second chair, but that seems rude or something like that,” Sparks said, though the words were in a bit of a rush. “So, like, why would we do that?”

“So it’s clear that he’s not first chair, and we’re not second chair, and that way we’ll be there for him and he’s not actually holding us back or any—”

Ollie yelped as he was cut off with a swift hit to the back of his head, a baseball cracking against his head and swiftly turning the lights out. 

“Alright. Now that Mr. Skateboard Therapy’s dealt with, everyone, listen up.” Jaylen took a deep breath as she looked around at the other Garages, tapping her foot as she thought about how to deal with all of this. Maybe she could figure it out so that they didn’t break Teddy further. She pulled over a chair, taking a deep breath before starting to lay out the plan for everyone. They were all smart people. They’d be able to figure it out sooner or later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Ollie's fine. He's got a thick enough skull that he's fine.   
> How did Jaylen get there so fast? I don't know. Blaseball logic, that's how.  
> Alright! one last chapter, and then it's the end of the fic!


	3. Chapter 3

“What up motherfucker it’s time for some self-care.”

Teddy jumped, though he curled tighter into himself rather than properly responding. He didn’t know why Jaylen was here, but he didn’t need yet another person bothering him and reacting...some way to his stupid song that probably wasn’t any good anyways. Jaylen especially didn’t need to be there, considering he didn’t particularly want to be more of a hassle and annoyance for her after everything. 

Jaylen narrowed her eyes when he didn’t immediately respond, and Teddy yelped as he felt a blaseball hit him, even if it wasn’t nearly as hard as the last two times she hit him. “You look awful, and I’m sure your mom would be upset if she saw the state of your hair, and I’ve dealt with the others so you’re coming over, talking about whatever shit needs to get talked about, and I’ll help with the hair shit.”

“I’m  _ fine _ , Jay, seriously.” Teddy stood up, glancing around the small studio, and he took a deep breath. There were chairs tipped over, and he was fairly sure he could still see some of the foam paneling on the wall dripping out of reality. And then there was the fact that there were several mallets and drumsticks snapped and thrown around the practice room. “I’m fine, honest.”

“Nope, don’t believe it.” Jaylen sighed before holding a hand out for her ball. “Tot texted. OLL-E played the song for me. Other Ollie had an awful plan, and I’m here to save it, alright? So I’m here to save the day and figure out what the fuck’s up with you.”

Teddy frowned, looking at the ground, and he took a deep breath. Of course everyone was just sharing that song with the world. He’d probably hear it on the radio by the end of the night at this rate. It was a stupid song, and it meant that everyone would find the Garages captain ridiculous, and he might as well disappear and arrange for a swap with some other team. Maybe the Breath Mints. They were from the middle of nowhere. “I don’t need help, and I don’t need the day saved, because there’s nothing to save.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Jaylen, seriously.”

“I’m not Allison. You can’t bullshit me, Duende.”

Teddy took a shaking breath, rolling the ball between his hands before finally passing it over, even if he wanted to keep it in his hands or something. “I can still try. Why do you even care?”

“You’re the captain. But really, you’re a good person, and you shouldn’t be ripping yourself apart like this. Come on. We’re talking and I’m going to help get you looking reasonable.”

Jaylen picked her way over some of the chairs that had tipped over, tutting quietly at the state the practice room was in. Teddy frowned as she started walking towards him. As she kept walking, ignoring his expression, he started taking a few steps back into the corner as well. Undaunted even by the quiet hiss from Teddy as he clambered up onto a chair as he tried to get away from her, she kept walking towards him. 

“Oh, good, you’re already in prime position. 

“Prime position for  _ wha— _ ”

Teddy’s words turned into a yelp as Jaylen tossed him over her shoulder and turned around to walk out, keeping a tight hold of him as he tried to squirm and get free of her grasp. “Like I said. Time for self-care, and I  _ am _ going to bully you into it. Might as well just give into it rather than squirming like a cat dumped in water.”

“This is ridiculous. I’m fine. You really don’t have to do this at all. I don’t even know why everyone’s making such a big deal about a stupid song.”

There was a pause for a few moments before Teddy felt Jaylen take a deep breath before she started to sing. He frowned, recognizing the melody,  _ and _ the words.

“... _ Screw the gods, I’m the real enemy. _ ”

Teddy fell still, practically limp on her shoulder as he pressed his forehead against her back, trying not to get too annoyed at having his own lyrics thrown in his face like this. “That’s not fair.” 

“Fuck off about fair.” Jaylen’s words were sharp as she snapped back at Teddy. “I never even felt like I was the proper enemy, and I set people up to get incinerated. You’re not fine.”

Teddy took a deep breath, wondering if he could ignore the comments if he could focus on the way Jaylen’s shoulder dug into his stomach, or see if he could figure out where they were going based on the patterns of the cement floor underneath them. “It’s true, though,” he finally murmured, quiet and soft and accepting that they’d be talking about this. He took a deep breath, ignoring the slight difficulty in the positioning. “Everyone else is doing so much better than us, and we’re not...it’s obvious we’re not the same family we used to be, and it’s...it’s my fault. It’s obviously my fault. I should have done something to stop everything from happening to us.”

“That’s stupid and you know that.” Jaylen’s arm squeezed Teddy, her grip tightening for a moment before she opened a door and dropped Teddy onto a countertop. “None of it’s your fault, you need to realize that.”

That was a lie. He was the captain, so he was  _ supposed _ to take care of everyone. He didn’t know why everyone didn’t understand that, and he nearly said as much, but the protests he had were almost silenced as he glanced around the small little apartment that they were in. 

“Arty let me borrow it. He’ll spend the night with Toast if we’re still here. You needed somewhere close and familiar, rather than getting dragged to your apartment.”

While it  _ was _ familiar, Teddy still didn’t know why he was here, or why Jaylen was trying to do this. They had never been the closest of friends, even back in season one, and everything that had happened after season seven made it hard for him to trust her for the longest time. That, along with the fact that it was Arty’s place, meant that he just stood against the wall, unsure of what to do, or what he was allowed to do. 

“I just wrote a song. It wasn’t meant to be..." Teddy took a deep breath, looking around for a moment, as though the right answer would find itself on the wall. “It wasn’t supposed to be taken as a cry for help or something. I didn’t even really mean for anyone else to hear it.”

“Well, we did, and it clearly _is_ a cry for help, so you’re talking to me, and then you’re going to get a therapist and talk to them, and then the rest of the team’s going to make sure you’re not doing this on your own anymore.” Jaylen sighed softly before grabbing Teddy’s hand and dragging him over to the bathroom. “I’m being serious about taking care of your hair, alright? You’re going to talk. I’m going to listen and snark, and you’re going to come out of this maybe with a realization that you don’t have to do this shit on your own.”

Teddy pulled away almost immediately, arms crossed as he looked at Jaylen before glancing away, staring at the scuffed wooden floors instead of anywhere else. “I don’t need to talk about this, alright? I know you’re the perfect, amazing Garages player that everyone loves, alright? But I’m captain. They told me I was captain, and everyone thinks I’m their dad or something, and, and so I have to be just as good as you were. Perfect, and amazing, and all of that.”

Jaylen opened her mouth, retort clearly on her tongue before she stopped and frowned and looked at Teddy, arms crossed as she took a step back. “Is that honestly what you think of me? That I’m the perfect pitcher for the perfect Garages? That I would have been able to have handled half the shit that you all did?”

“What of it?” Teddy frowned, glancing up at her before looking away. Similarly guarded, arms crossed tight over his chest, he really had no idea where any of this was going, or even what he really wanted to say about any of this. Mostly, he desperately wanted it to go away so that he could ignore it and just pretend that it didn’t exist.

“You’ve been trying to compare yourself to the memory of me for  _ eleven seasons _ ?”

Teddy winced, looking away and taking a deep breath before finally shrugging. “Sure! I guess so! I don’t know, alright? I just...I know we agreed to not have captains back then. And then I managed to have a half-decent play against the Pies once, and so they all voted to make me captain and made a big show about it and everything like that, and then I was the only one willing to do the paperwork, and then go to the inter-league meetings, and then it just...spiraled from there. And then the fans started calling me the team dad, so I couldn’t let  _ them _ down, especially since they constantly made me out to be the best batter, and..."

“And so you’ve been competing with ghosts for practically eleven seasons now.”

Teddy fell silent, frowning at the floor and trying not to grow too upset or furious, but mostly he was trying to keep himself from crying over all of this. He didn’t want to deal with this. Why couldn’t he just quietly shove all of those feelings and unpleasantness into a box in the back of his mind and never deal with it again?

“You realize you’re probably the reason all the old Garages still wear their flannels, right?”

“They don’t wear their flannels.” Teddy would have known if they did. But they didn’t, just their usual uniforms, and they ended up playing so much better when he wasn’t there being a burden or a disappointment. Gods, that song should have been about  _ him _ instead of Mike. 

“Not on the field, but...off the field, we do. We miss home, and we miss you checking in on us. But seriously, Teddy, do you honestly think we’d want you hurting like this?” Jaylen sighed before walking up to him and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Do you think you can relax, for, like, three hours? And not have a crisis? I’m serious about your hair.”

Teddy sighed, though he didn’t put up a fight as Jaylen tugged him towards the bathroom. At least he knew there wouldn’t be a mirror inside, so he wouldn’t have to deal with that as well. “I could...probably relax. No promises about the crisis.”

“Good, because you don’t have a choice.” Jaylen looked at Teddy before sighing softly. He could see the disappointment, or the hurt, or something that he couldn't quite parse on her face, and he wasn’t sure if that hurt more or if he was just numb at this point.

Jaylen grabbed a footstool as they walked to the bathroom, dragging Teddy along with her so that he couldn’t run away. He could already see that there was the nice shampoo and oil that he used to use years and years ago, and he frowned for a few moments as he paused and stopped. Jaylen kept walking, though, setting it down in front of the bathtub. Teddy wasn’t entirely sure what this meant, just how much this...this intervention had been planned, and he didn’t know if he could handle this, even if Jaylen had made it abundantly clear that she didn’t mind. 

“Teddy?”

“I...I can’t do this. I’m going to just go home, and then everyone’s going to forget this ever happened, and I’m just going to never play any music again.” That was a much more reasonable response than any of  _ this _ at all, and he quickly started backing away.

Jaylen moved, and while Teddy knew for a fact that his baserunning stars were better than hers, she still managed to catch his legs and he stumbled back, nearly falling to the ground.

“You’re not about to disappear on me, alright? You’re going to stay put, and you are going to let me  _ fix _ your stupid locks, so please, for once, let someone take care of you.” Jaylen took a deep breath as she looked at Teddy before frowning. “Or am I going to have to call in the big guns? Randy? Does he know about any of this?”

“Fuck off. Randy doesn’t need to know I’m having a breakdown in my ex’s bathroom.” Teddy took a deep breath before stepping over her and sitting down at the stool, even if he wasn’t too happy about it. But he would sit down, and accept this treatment, even if he still couldn’t be convinced that this was worth it.

Jaylen frowned as she looked at him, rolling her eyes before settling down at the edge of the tub. She didn’t say anything, though, not as she started the water so that it could get warm, nor as she pulled his hair out of the frankly awful half-bun it had been in for longer than Teddy would like to admit. Still, the fact that Jaylen didn’t say anything, and really barely even  _ did _ anything beyond starting to get ready to wash his hair helped to ease the tension that was still hidden away in his shoulders. 

“Did I really do that bad of a job that I need replaced?” Teddy barely even knew how to ask that question, or voice the emotions behind that, and he hoped that Jaylen was able to hear him, or understand what he was saying. He didn’t even know what he was looking for, whether he wanted an answer in the positive, or the negative. If he did such a poor job, then why was everyone so upset with him? And if he didn’t, then why were they trying to replace him or get him to step down? Did he even _want_ to step down?

That question had Teddy pausing, and even if Jaylen said something or responded, he couldn’t hear it past his own thoughts. Did he want to not be captain anymore? Eleven seasons on the team, and almost ten as captain, and he didn’t even know who he’d be without being captain. He didn’t know how he’d interact with anyone if he didn’t have that thin veneer of being responsible and watching out for them, and he didn’t even know if he’d be able to talk to them without being the captain.

“Teddy?” Jaylen interrupted his thoughts as she brushed a touch to his cheek, and Teddy blinked his eyes open to look at her and properly focus on her. “You alright?”

The question was almost a surprise, and Teddy frowned for a moment, and she shrugged in response. 

“Noticed you’re crying. Tearing up, I guess.” Jaylen sighed softly, returning her hands to his hair and carefully twisting the locks, making sure they looked as nice and neat as possible. “You were a good captain. Such a good captain, even that first season I was back and getting people killed.”

Teddy huffed a quiet laugh, raising an eyebrow as he glanced over at her. “If I remember correctly, I screamed at you after Ruby Tuesday, and then punched you after you hit Dom.”

“And you had every right to, but you didn’t do it in front of anyone else.”

“Woulda been rude in front of the others.”

Jaylen shrugged, humming softly under her breath as she continued working, and Teddy slowly relaxed again. Now that she wasn’t forcefully making him try to accept whatever...this was, or wasn’t trying to insist that he was being ridiculous with everything, he could he could properly relax and enjoy the way she was clearly trying to take care of him. The quiet was nice, and perhaps Teddy could admit that he had needed to relax. 

“Who am I other than team captain? Everyone...everyone just talks about me like only worth my place as captain, and team dad..."

“Teddy, you’re not a dad, what the fuck. Do they not realize you’re one of the youngest people on the team?”

Teddy laughed softly, nodding a little bit. “You’d be surprised. But...captain, at least. Who else is going to want to do the paperwork?”

“On a rotating schedule.”

Teddy frowned, and he glanced away after a moment. “League meetings?”

“Schedule as well, or at least someone’s going to join you.”

Well...that was one option, he supposed. Even if he doubted that anyone would really want to entirely take over the meetings from him, and it was hard enough asking them over the past handful of years. “Taking care of everyone?”

“Take care of each other, idiot. You’ve always done that. You’re acting like you’ve never been part of a family.” 

That was something. Teddy closed his eyes again, trying to relax a bit more as well. Maybe he could manage that. Maybe he could just be a Seattle Garages player, both in the band and on the blaseball team. Obviously it would take time to adjust, but then again, what else was he doing during the Grand Siesta? His entire existence was wrapped up around blaseball, and now he had been forced to find an identity outside of that. 

Maybe he could manage it. Maybe he could find himself outside of being captain. 

“Oh, and the team wants to hear the song again after your hair’s a bit better and you’re a bit more in one piece. They’ve got a bit of a plan. Ollie did, but I’ve made some adjustments to it.”

“I’m not changing the song.” Teddy didn’t want to change his song, not even if the team asked so that they felt better about it. 

“Nope. Just adding in a final verse. Abbott’s coming. We’re trying to get Mike a bit less shadowed to back you on guitar as well. And then there’s me, obviously.”

Teddy took a shaking breath as he thought about that, thought about all of them playing again. He knew they hadn’t really played together all that much, even back before everything went to hell, but it was a good thought, at least. Comfortable and nice and a bit more like his family would be back home together. 

“So..."

“So the family’s coming home,” Jaylen said, a small grin on her face as she looked at him. “I’ll get everyone else back for a proper concert. But at least for the recording of your song, we’re getting a few of us back together, and then you’re going to back off from being captain. Gotta share the burden. You know that.” Jaylen shrugged a small frown on her face. “Seems like all of you have forgotten that a bit. Or the new folks didn’t know that, if they saw you falling apart like this and...just let it happen. So you need to get them to be a family. Maybe since you’ve got a song, everyone else can get a song to. Have that be the next album and all.”

Teddy hummed quietly before nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s...that’s a good idea.” 

Jaylen grinned, nodding as she returned to taking care of him. “Of course it’s a good idea. Now let me finish, alright? I’m serious, I’m trying to take care of your hair for you. We’ll deal with everything else once Abbott’s here.”

“Alright. Alright, yeah. We can do that.” Teddy smiled, just a little bit. He still didn’t feel perfect, and he doubted that he’d entirely be able to heal immediately, but at least for now, he could relax and let someone else take care of him, and work with his team to move forward. They could move forward, at least, and some days, that was all he could hope for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! And that's that. Honestly....I'm still not entirely sure about this fic. Something feels weird about it, but it works, to an extent. But yeah, I hope everyone enjoys it. I really do enjoy exploring this side of the stress that almost ten seasons of being captain and "in charge" of a team could put on someone, especially Teddy. And especially Teddy, considering Duendes are "generally pretty nice guys." So you've got this pretty nice guy, on a team that says that there is no second chair, basically being tossed into first chair, so he's gotta make it work, and then after the disasters of seasons 6 (because my Teddy's dating/married to Randy, so he lost him), and then 7 (holy shit they caused Ruby Tuesday and the incineration of some of the most popular players by agreeing to Necromancy), and then seasons 8 and 9 when they lost most everyone with the Feedback and all of the blood sips, too. It makes me really happy that other people are recognizing just how awful that might be, and so when someone asked me to write a fic based on Teddy's song from "ROSTER," I was more than happy to indulge.   
> But yeah! Enough of my rambling. Thanks so much for reading! Comments and kudos are always welcome!


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